Goans in Karachi: 1947 (Before and After): Goans in Sports

Menin Rodrigues | AUGUST 26, 2022, 07:49 PM IST

Sports is a lifeline that runs through the bloodstreams of every Goan, like our love for music, song, and dance. By virtue of Karachi being a centre for education, Goans moved here in droves from the mid-19th century. The opportunity to participate and excel in sports enabled Goans to rule on the ‘maidans’ (open spaces) of a developing city.

Legendary schools like the 161-year-old St Patrick’s and the 160-year-old St Joseph’s nurtured talented boys and girls in multiple disciplines of sport. For the boys, hockey and cricket were the driving force, and track & field/badminton for the damsels across the street, separated by the grandiose St Patrick’s Cathedral (1878) and the majestic Christ the King Monument (1931).

Karachi has the distinction of producing many wizards of hockey in the sub-continent including Peter Paul Fernandes, ‘the first Goan hockey player’ to represent British India at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Other stalwarts included Lawrie Fernandes, Marceline D’Costa, Patrick Mendes, Julius Tellis and many more, all contemporaries of the Indian legend Dhyan Chand (1905-1979). The mesmerising agility of the Goan players was known to have surpassed the best of the rest, including Dhyan Chand.

St Pat’s produced brilliant hockey players, who participated and won several All-India hockey championships including the Cabral Shield, Beyton Cup, Aga Khan Cup, Dewar Shield etc. After partition when Pakistan announced its squad for the 1948 London Olympics, two Goans made the team, Milton D’Mello (centre-half) and Oswald Nazareth, as the co-manager. Four years later at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, another Karachi Goan, Jack Britto (centre-forward) donned the national colours. Incidentally, Jack was a brilliant cricketer too, he was selected to play for Pakistan in both disciplines (hockey and cricket) but chose hockey to show his mettle. Quite a unique ‘all-time’ achievement for any player on both sides of the fence.

This column would be incomplete without the mention of Karachi-born genius Anthony Stanislaus D’Mello who gave India a sports infrastructure which to-date is the backbone of Indian sporting excellence. Anthony was a visionary, a master planner and an astute organiser who founded the Cricket Club of India (Brabourne Stadium), the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the Ranji Trophy and was the Chief Organiser of the first Asian Games held in 1958 in New Delhi – a historic and star-studded achievement by a Karachi Goan.

In 1940, Bertie Gomes and Hannibal D’Souza were crowned All-India heavyweight and flyweight boxing champions. From the 1950s through the 1970s, Goan sportsmen and women were among the best in the country, winning national titles and representing Pakistan. The first Goan ever to play Test Cricket, be it India or Pakistan, was Mathais Wallis who played 21 tests from 1955-1961. Antao D’Souza played 6 test matches from 1959 to 1962. Several Goan hockey and cricket players in the 1960s and 70s came quite close to being selected for national teams. During the same time, several Goan women won national athletic sprint events.

Indoor sports like Table Tennis, Badminton, and Billiards & Snooker were very popular with our Goan boys and girls, and many went on to win national titles and represent the country. Leading the pack was Michael Rodrigues who was a five-time (1959-1963) national table tennis champion of Pakistan; the lanky shuttler Mennen Soares who played for Pakistan at the Thomas Cup in 1954, and national women’s badminton champions, Marie Therese Braganza (1954), Gemma Rodricks (1958 & 1960) and Coral Barboza (1971). Lenny Dias represented Pakistan at the 1982 Billiard Championships in Bombay and in 1984, Earl Cordeiro was the national Junior Snooker champion of the country.

Goans don’t feature prominently in sports at the national level anymore, though several Christians are and currently playing for Pakistan.


Next: Goan Kudds and Konkani

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